


By Rote

by orphan_account



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-28 01:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drink for two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Rote

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bogged](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bogged/gifts).



There is a lilac cardigan lying on the back of the armchair like an old bruise. It's Ann's, and has been there since the last time she left. It's not that George kept it there on purpose – his flat still stands as a home, not a mausoleum – only that it was Ann's chair most of all, so he never had need to move it.

 

He boils a kettle over the kitchen stove, pours two coffees, stirs until the instant granules dissolve as much as they ever will. Milk in one mug; Peter takes his black. When he brings them through, the cardigan is folded over the right arm of the chair. Peter is sitting there, in the slight grooves Ann carved in the earlier years, his legs crossed.

 

George asks him if he wants more sugar.

 

*

 

George hasn't read the morning paper for years. It seems so pointless, reading uninformed tittle-tattle about news he's been briefed on for weeks. He keeps up a subscription nonetheless. He likes the crossword.

 

Peter lets himself in earlier than he used to these days, picks up the broadsheet on his way in.

 

*

 

When asked why he swims, George tends to mutter some well-meaning tripe about clearing his mind, what with the stresses and strains of the job.

 

When Peter asks him, George says quietly, "Habit, I'm sure."

 

"Ah," Peter replies, all wry clarity.

 

*

 

George drank rather regularly during his enforced retirement. From his limited pool of research, afternoon public houses and a bridge club he briefly contemplated, this turned out to be an unremarkable response to things.

 

He and Peter have a nightcap most evenings, a singular glass before Peter leaves for the low-lit London streets. George had always been a bourbon drinker before. Peter admits a fondness for wine.

 

"It's a drink for two," he mumbles into his tumbler.

 

George buys a medium-dry red that afternoon, from some French province he doesn't care to pronounce, and Peter is far too drunk to drive home that night.

 

*

 

Neither of them play chess. Whether either of them ever did seems a slightly irrelevant line of questioning.

 

*

 

Ann's cardigan disappears from the armchair altogether, a clearing in the faint dust. The ghost of it is  quickly dismissed by Peter's jacket, draped all garish and royal blue over the clashing old fabric.

Things used to linger.  It doesn't bother George so much that they're on the move again.


End file.
